Figure out the legal wrapper for your DAO and find the best jurisdictions for registering your DAO companies.
GET STARTEDview pricing
Protect your DAO
Your DAO needs a legal structure, often called a "DAO Legal Wrapper" to hold the treasury, protect DAO members from unlimited liability, and allow DAO members to take part in decision making processes (like voting). Legal Nodes offers a single platform where you can sort out all DAO legal matters in one place.
We are grateful to be partnering with Legal Nodes on all legal matters for Web3 projects going through the Interchain Builders Program as they always have the latest legal frameworks.
Stef Sprinz
Interchain Builders Program’s Lead
How to build your DAO legal wrapper
01
Find the best country
to register your DAO
What are the advantages of a registered DAO compared to an unregistered DAO?
What DAO projects provide good use cases for successful DAO wrappers?
What risks do I face if I choose not to register my DAO (is it even an option)?
Are there any countries that don’t have specific DAO laws but might still be suitable for my DAO?
Which countries have specific regulatory frameworks for DAOs?
How can my DAO interact with the off-chain world?
How can my DAO sell tokens to VCs?
How can my DAO attract investment from institutional market players?
How can my DAO still remain autonomous and independent?
02
Prepare your DAO to interact with the off-chain world
03
Implement governance mechanisms in accordance with the law
How can I make the process of protocol & treasury management (governance) more transparent for the community?
How can I protect founders & core contributors who were initially involved in protocol or token launches?
What steps should I take to make the DAO Governance process legally binding?
How can I protect DAO founders, council and members from legal liabilities?
How Legal Nodes helps
Explore
Start by submitting a request to Legal Nodes. We’ll assess your Web3 project and help you figure out everything you need to do to wrap your DAO.
Strategize
Identify the best country and most suitable entity for registering your DAO. With our help you can make a plan to build your DAO’s legal structure.
Achieve
Using locally-based lawyers, bring your DAO’s legal wrapper to life, and build your bridge to safely connect your DAO to off-chain world.
We've found Legal Nodes to be most useful for founders who face the complex task of creating legal frameworks for their international projects.
Viktor Ihnatiuk
Founder @ Boosty
Protect members from unlimited liability and free your DAO to operate autonomously, hand-in-hand with the off-chain world.
GET STARTED
Legal task management, simplified.
Meet your Virtual Legal Officer
Your dedicated VLO matches each task with the most suitable locally-based expert so you don’t have to source any more lawyers yourself. Your VLO also quality-checks deliverables and keeps your dashboard updated and in order.
Keep track of global legal tasks for your wrapper
From registering your legal wrapper to preparing your DAO constitution, streamline all your global tasks into the Legal Nodes platform and build your wrapper with ease.
Get a clear picture of future tasks, budgets, and timelines
The Legal Nodes platform makes it easy to dive into the details of each task, and view estimated budgets, delivery timelines and get quick access to your documents and deliverables. Get help from your VLO via the chat that keeps communication streamlined and simplified.
GET STARTED
DAO launch legal tasks that we help with
From Cayman Islands to Singapore, we work with legal experts, tax advisors, and compliance specialists in 10+ crypto-friendly countries to help wrap your DAO.
Here’s how we help Web3 founders to set up DAO legal wrappers.
View pricing
DAO legal wrapper registration
Register a Foundation / LLC legal entity to keep liability off founders & members and hold a governance wrapper for members of your DAO
🇺🇸 US
🇨🇭 Switzerland
🇱🇮 Liechtenstein
🇸🇬 Singapore
🇻🇬 BVI
🇵🇦 Panama
🇰🇾 Cayman Islands
🇧🇸 Bahamas
🇲🇭 Marshall Islands
Obtain specific licenses and authorisations
Obtain specific licenses (e.g. the Virtual Asset Service Provider in Cayman Islands) to operate your DAO
🇺🇸 US
🇨🇭 Switzerland
🇱🇮 Liechtenstein
🇸🇬 Singapore
🇻🇬 BVI
🇵🇦 Panama
🇰🇾 Cayman Islands
🇧🇸 Bahamas
🇲🇭 Marshall Islands
DAO Constitution preparation
Develop a decentralised governance model and incorporate it into constitutional documents of the DAO company (Articles of Association, Bylaws, etc.)
🇺🇸 US
🇨🇭 Switzerland
🇱🇮 Liechtenstein
🇸🇬 Singapore
🇻🇬 BVI
🇵🇦 Panama
🇰🇾 Cayman Islands
🇧🇸 Bahamas
🇲🇭 Marshall Islands
Treasury management compliance
Incorporate KYC & AML verification procedures for receiving grants for DAO and spending funds from DAO Treasury
🇺🇸 US
🇨🇭 Switzerland
🇱🇮 Liechtenstein
🇸🇬 Singapore
🇻🇬 BVI
🇵🇦 Panama
🇰🇾 Cayman Islands
🇧🇸 Bahamas
🇲🇭 Marshall Islands
Frequently asked questions
What is a “DAO Legal Wrapper”?
A DAOlegal wrapper is a legal entity registered specifically for a DAOand aimed to help limit the liability of DAOmembers for the DAOactions and facilitate some of the DAO's interactions with the off-chain world actors (investors, exchanges, contractors, etc.).
DAOs can be incorporated as different entities: foundations, associations, non-profit or for-profit LLCs. The actual choice of entity and jurisdiction depends on the DAO type (community/protocol, service, investment), business model, token utilities, and other factors.
What are the risks of unregistered DAO?
An unregistered DAO can lead to multiple risks and barriers to a DAO’s optimal performance. Primarily, unregistered DAOs will struggle to form the relationships they want with investors, cryptocurrency exchanges, contractors, and other business and legal entities. There are also prominent legal risks associated with unregistered DAOs:
- Judicial liability, whereby a non-incorporated DAO is recognised as a General Partnership, placing liability on every single member of the DAO, and putting them and their assets—at risk of legal proceedings.
- Tax liability, whereby DAO members can face fines and penalties in the event of the non-incorporated DAO failing to pay the correct income taxes.
- Financial (and even criminal) liability, whereby the routine procedure of attracting funds from new DAO members without following the required verification procedures, including checking the sources of the funds, could result in criminal investigations for financial crimes.
What is the most common legal form of DAO registration?
The most popular, and therefore most common, means of DAO registration is a foundation, a self-owning entity, which allows members to make contributions to fund the DAO. The foundation does not have any owners (ie, members are not equivalent to shareholders of a company).
That being said, members of the DAO foundation can vote on governance proposals and can elect a trusted person to act as Guardian or Supervisor. This special role ensures proper organisation and implementation of voted-on decisions. The DAO foundation owns the Treasury (the virtual assets that are to be used for foundation purposes only). The DAO members are entitled to vote on how the assets are used.
The foundation operates via statute, which sets goals on how the DAO can spend its funds, how members are to be accepted into the organisation, and the DAO governance rules, such as voting procedures.
How much does it cost to register a DAO?
There are lots of options for DAO registrations, and usually we can provide very rough cost (and time) estimates for registering a DAO in a particular country. However, it’s important to note that Pricing really varies from project to project, and even with rough estimations for simply registering a company in a particular country, you may not be getting a full scope of costs to build your legal wrapper. This is because pricing varies for each jurisdiction you operate in, and also changes depending on what tasks you’re doing, such as obtaining licensing, obtaining legal opinion, and performing KYC checks, etc. You can look at rough estimates on our pricing page or to help you get a better idea of pricing for your project, speak to us.
Read our latest legal insights on DAOs
Web3 LegalThree Key Functions of a DAO Foundation
by
Nestor Dubnevych
DAO legalGovernance
Web3 LegalLaunching a DAO: the 3 Stages and Legal Works for DAO Projects
by
Nestor Dubnevych
DAO legal
Web3 Legal
by
Nestor Dubnevych
DAO legal
Get started with Legal Nodes
Protect your DAO members, and set up your governance and treasury with a DAO wrapper.
